Passing the Years Among the Stars
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: "Me? I've always been more about the journey. She's a ship that flies and she has a captain who clearly loves her enough to keep her that way. The rest is just dressin'." Rose/Mal.


AUTHOR'S NOTES: Crossover between Firefly and Doctor Who. Set post-'Journey's End' and post-BDM. The main pairing is Rose Tyler/Malcolm Reynolds, but it also contains implied Doctor/Rose and Mal/Inara.

* * *

><p>She dangles a sack of money in front of him. He looks sorely tempted by the promise of cold hard coins, but still seems reluctant. She can't really blame him. She could be Alliance, for all he knows, and she'll just bet his ship does more smuggling runs than anything more legitimate. Both it and its Captain have that kind of look about them.<p>

"Where're you headed?" the ship's Captain asks.

Rose almost doesn't hear him, busy studying the angular planes of the old junker ship that she would half suspect wasn't sky-worthy if she hadn't ridden aboard far worse in her time. Even if such a ship promises a little hardship to those on board, it won't exactly kill her, Rose thinks with a dark sense of amusement.

"Away," she replies distantly.

"Well, see, we've had some problems somewhat recently with them's that just want to get elsewhere, so I'd really appreciate if you could be a tad more specific."

Rose meets his eyes, then, and there's a sort of kindness (almost unwilling, she believes) behind his suspicion that she recognises even after all these years. "There're too many people in that sky out there that just wanna get from place to place," she says. "Me? I've always been more about the journey. She's a ship that flies and she has a captain who clearly loves her enough to keep her that way. The rest is just dressin'."

She can tell she hasn't really assuaged his worries, but she's certainly caught his interest, as she knew she would. She can sense it around him; the air of someone who lives for the freedom his ship symbolises, however limited it might be in the grand scheme. That specific combination of man and ship is just the thing she's been looking for (that she's _always _been looking for over such a long time, even though she often tries to deny it to herself).

"All right," he finally agrees. "But you so much as look at one of my crew with shifty eyes and I'll put you down quicker than you can draw that gun you've got concealed under your coat."

Rose is impressed that he's noticed it, knowing she's concealed it just as well as she always does. "I can draw it pretty quick, Captain – got loads of practice lately – but I'll still take your word for it."

"Shiny," he says, dipping his head slightly in acknowledgement. "Long as we're clear."

She waits for him to lead the way, but he doesn't budge. She chuckles lightly at how obvious he is about his mistrust. She decides it's probably safe to have him at her back instead of the other way around if that's the way he wants to play it, figuring that he doesn't seem the kind to shoot or stab her without her seeing it coming.

She lugs her heavy pack over her shoulder, not even bothering to try to get rid of the coating of dust from where the pack has been resting on the ground. She doubts anyone on the Firefly-class ship, the loading plank of which she's walking up, is in any state to judge her cleanliness if they've spent any time at all out on the surface of the dustbowl planet.

It doesn't mean she can't still feel judging eyes on her the whole way, coming from the Captain himself. It just means it's got nothing to do with anything as simply fixed as her presentation.

She gets a far warmer welcome from a half-blackened young girl who introduces herself as Kaylee and smells strongly of engine grease. For all the other ways he instantly reminds her of the first man who took her into space, it would have fit her expectations for the Captain to have a scent like that lingering about him. For Kaylee, though, it seems an odd contrast with her dreamy attitude, which Rose immediately picks up on because she remembers a time when she was a little like that as well.

In another age, she thinks Kaylee would have probably looked right at home spending her days lying out in the sun dreaming of nothing but handsome young men, content in the knowledge that she'd never have to work a day in her life with her father's money to get her by. Things are hard these days, though. Rose knows that perhaps better than anyone. Everyone but the most exorbitantly rich people in this sector of the universe have to be willing to pitch a hand in and do some hard labour to earn their way. Anyone who can't do that tends to starve.

With that in mind, though, it's an odd crew. Even putting Kaylee aside, there's a girl who looks like a sharp breeze might snap her in half, and a man too proper and clean to look at home in the back-ends of space that this ship clearly travels. Rose knows that appearances can be deceiving, but it's still surprising that the only people who look like they've ever picked up a gun are the Captain, a hardened looking woman and a guy who looks like he wants to shove Rose up against the wall of the hold and have his way with her, audience or no. Rose glares at the latter, wondering whether the Captain's warning holds true for the members of the crew who can clearly handle themselves. The man leers at her and loops a hand in his belt suggestively, and Rose really sort of wants to wipe that look off his face enough to press her luck. She wonders whether he makes everyone who meets him immediately want to shoot him, or whether she's just special.

"No other passengers?" the Captain asks.

"It's slim pickin's out there this time, Cap'n," Kaylee answers sadly. "Sorry."

"Never you mind, little Kaylee. We touch down in Verani in a week. I hear lots of people are making their way out of there lately, things being how they are. We'll have more luck then."

"But we got one passenger," Kaylee points out, bouncing back to a purely positive attitude so quickly that Rose wonders that she doesn't get whiplash. That sort of innocence is rare this end of the 'verse, and Rose hopes she hangs onto it for a little while yet. It's refreshing. "And you ain't even introduced her properly, with a name and all."

"Didn't rightly catch it," the Captain admits.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," Rose says.

The Captain smiles tightly. "Captain Malcolm Reynolds."

"Rose Tyler. No fancy title to hide behind for me, though, sorry," Rose returns pointedly.

"No one here's hiding," the Captain says. "You call me Mal if you want to. It's my trust that needs earning, not the privilege of using my name."

"Cap'n!" Kaylee scolds him, looking scandalised at his abruptness. She throws Rose an apologetic look, as if she's somehow personally responsible for Mal's words.

Rose doesn't think an apology is necessary, though, even from Mal himself. He's right not to trust someone who strolls up to him out of the blue and asks for a ride without so much as a handshake and an exchange of names. And, truth be told, she appreciates it. It's refreshing for someone to be honest enough to let her know exactly where she stands.

There's little enough of that going around.

* * *

><p>It's made clear immediately that Rose is to remain confined to certain areas of the ship. Rose wonders if that's supposed to stop her from witnessing the crew's shady business dealings, as if anyone who comes on board this ship and brings half a brain with them would expect anything else.<p>

She also notices pretty quickly that she's never in the room with a member of the crew unless Mal is there as well, watching her like a hawk (not that Mal himself would likely have a clue what one of those was; they'd died out long before the exodus from Earth That Was had ever been dreamt of).

Even a week into their journey, as they're about to touch back down on solid ground, he apparently doesn't trust her at all. She supposes she still hasn't given him any particular reason to.

"Stay here," Mal orders, gesturing.

"What, in my room, like a child?" Rose asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Exactly. I don't want you getting yourself in the way."

"I could actually do somethin' useful, you know," Rose says. "I'm hardly just some kinda tourist, here. I've got my own guns and I'm good in a fight. I bet the same can't be said of all of your crew. Kaylee told me you're a few crew members short, lately, and there's a kind of power in numbers. I'm sure a man like you knows that well enough, yeah?"

Mal glowers at her. "What makes you think we need fighters? These're good folk on my boat, just here for peaceful business."

Rose snorts indelicately. "Please. Don't treat me like an idiot. But as far as I'm concerned, being good people and gettin' involved in the shadier side of the business world aren't always mutually exclusive. Man's gotta find the work where it's at."

Mal stared at her speculatively then nodded sharply. "That may be true and all," he says, "but you're still staying here."

Rose doesn't put up any more of a fight, and she knows that makes him suspicious, but he clearly doesn't have time to do much about it. She's careful not to close the door to her room the whole way so that he can't lock her in, though. If things go pear-shaped, as she gets the feeling they frequently do on this ship, she wants to know about it.

She might need to step in, after all. It'd hardly be the first time that she's been needed even where she isn't _wanted_.

She hates to say she told him so, but she finds that sometimes it really is called for. When she hears the guns start firing in earnest, Rose bursts out of the hold into the sunlight of a planet she doesn't recognise.

Mal's certainly taken her jibe about power in numbers to heart, at least when it comes to appearances. Everyone from the crew of _Serenity _but Rose is out there. Not all of them are fighters, though, so their presence might do more harm than good now that things have got out of hand. The other side has seven gunners aiming their way to Mal and his crew's three.

Mal himself pushes Kaylee firmly behind a tree so that she can hide. River is unarmed and seems kind of spaced out, as Rose has noticed she always seems to be. However, she successfully dances away from the bullets in a manner that _seems _completely unintended but might well be a perfectly executed plan; it's hard to tell with River. The doctor, River's brother (she can't for the life of her remember his name in that moment of taking in all the chaos), doesn't seem to know what to do with himself, firing the gun that looks foreign in his hand randomly, not even coming close to hitting anyone, but still drawing attention to himself.

Rose sees a gun levelled at the doctor and knows that he doesn't. Mal notices it too, Rose can tell through her peripheral vision, but he hasn't got a clear shot at the owner of that gun from that angle anymore than Rose does from where she's standing. He jumps free of his cover in an effort to save the doctor. He obviously cares more about the safety of his crew than his own, even though she can tell from what interactions she's witnessed between them that he doesn't love the doctor in quite the way he does some of the others. She knows he'd do anything to protect all of them just the same, even send them away from his side or sacrifice himself if only it would help keep them safe. Just like someone Rose can't help but remember always would, she thought.

It's too late for that any of that now, though. To Rose, the moment seems to stretch out forever, as if time has slowed for her the way she remembers it sometimes did for _him_. In reality, though, it's a split-second.

Mal can't do anything in that time.

Rose can.

She barely knows the doctor from the man who's firing at him, but it doesn't matter. She still leaps wildly out in front of him, firing a shot as she goes, and takes three bullets to her chest that were meant for him. She does it because she can, and because Malcolm Reynolds would clearly do just the same for him if he could, even though he has no lives to spare.

She falls to the ground to the sound of further gunshots and hopes that they're shot by the crew of _Serenity_, not at them. She'd hate to have gone and got herself killed before they really have need of her help.

* * *

><p>When Rose comes to with a gasp, as always she has very little concept of how much time has passed. She only knows that the sounds of the gun fight have ceased, and that a fragile-looking girl is kneeling beside her with Rose's gun in her hand, using the butt of it to trace something into Rose's skin that looks suspiciously like Gallifreyan, though Rose knows all too well that there's only ever been one person living in this universe who knew anything at all about that language from Rose, and he's long since passed.<p>

"Glowing fire," River murmurs. "Coals in your eyes that make the universe tiny." River smiles somewhat eerily. "Look sharp, Rose Tyler."

Rose shivers. The girl must be more than just slightly psychic, she realises, and clearly not in a particularly stable way. She wishes the Doctor could be here (as if she doesn't always, at every single moment of every day). He'd know how to deal with this girl better than Rose does.

She sits up, snatching the gun from River's slack grip. She likes to give people the benefit of the doubt, really she does, but it's hard to tell just what someone like River is capable of. Rose isn't about to trust her with a loaded gun until she has a better idea.

She hears Jayne say, "Ain't natural. No one takes three pellets to the chest and then sits up like nothing's happened."

Mal is at her side, then, gently pushing River out of the way. "Doc," he calls out, "get yourself in gear and get over here."

"I don't need any patchin' up," Rose assures him. Mal goes to push her back down to the ground, presumably to stop her from making the wounds worse. Rose struggles with him for a second then sighs and reaches down to pull the hem of her shirt free of her trousers. Three spent bullets fall free of the fabric, having been pushed clear of her healing skin. The grime of her blood coats skin that's clearly whole underneath it. "See?" she says.

Though Mal can see clearly enough that she's unharmed, he still runs a hand over her skin as if to check that his eyes aren't deceiving him. The light touch makes the muscles in her abdomen tighten and she shivers. Their gazes lock, and Mal's hand stays pressed against her, rising and falling with her breath.

"Does it hurt?" he asks.

"Every time," she replies truthfully. "But only for a while. I'm fine now."

"She's a witch," Jayne says loudly.

"Yeah," Mal agrees. "But we already got one of them on board, and it's not worked out so bad."

Jayne looks like he'd very much like to disagree, but something about Mal's expression shuts him up.

"You're absolutely fine?" Mal asks her, still sounding disbelieving.

"Shiny and new," Rose says.

Mal nods shortly and rises back to his feet. "Then we've got work to do. Standing about being all wowed by the medical miracle isn't gonna get it done."

Rose agrees completely and is glad of any excuse to stop the lot of them from gaping at her like she's the sort of oddity Rose knows are stashed in the underground freak shows on the very outskirts of the Rim.

The doctor (Simon, she finally remembers now that she has a second to actually think of something as inconsequential as a name) tries to protest when Rose lends a hand with the clean up. Rose shucks him off and tells him that he looks like he's doing worse than she is; he's white as a sheet and shaking from his close call.

All of them act sort of antsy in her presence until they're back on the ship and can not-so-subtly flee.

Mal is the only one who remains behind. He looks her over as if still unconvinced that she's not just toughing it out until she can crawl into a corner to die in peace.

"When you said you were handy in a fight," Mal says finally, "I didn't think you meant anything like _this_."

"Yeah, well, I don't exactly go broadcastin' this, do I?" Rose replies bitterly. "Tellin' people you had a run-in with a force so powerful that just touchin' it for too long made you immortal doesn't get you anywhere but into scads of trouble. You can imagine how the Alliance might like to study someone like me."

She sees Mal's eyes flick off to the side, as if seeking out something (or someone) in particular. "I surely can," he says. Rose feels like she's had a suspicion confirmed. She'd thought River had an air of science experiment gone wrong about her. No wonder Mal's so protective. What little her chats with Kaylee have revealed is enough to let her know that this crew's been to hell and back, but it's clear there's even more layers to this story that she doesn't yet grasp.

It only makes her want to know more. She's never been very good at staying out of trouble when she sees it coming.

"Since River seems happily settled in, I imagine you're not likely to turn me in," Rose says.

"I'm no friend of the Alliance, and I don't make a habit of paying someone back for a good deed with treachery. The rest of the crew'll follow my lead."

"Even Jayne?" she asks. "Seems more like he'd wanna chuck me out an airlock than work side by side."

"Won't lie and say we've never had problems with him and this kind of thing before, but he knows what's good for him by now. I'll keep him in line. 'Sides, I can't let you get stolen away by the Alliance before I can even give you a proper thanks. What you did today..."

"You're not gonna get mushy on me now, are you?" Rose asks. "I did you a favour today. One that didn't cost me much of anythin' in the long run, as you can see. Doesn't mean I'm one of your crew that you need to go all mother chicken on."

"You saved one of my crew," Mal counters. "Makes you as good as in my books."

"That you offerin' me a job, Captain Reynolds?" Rose asks, incredulous. Just a day earlier he'd be reticent about her being on his boat at all. Now he seems to be considering making it permanent. Obviously she's earned his trust after all.

"I might just be at that," he says. "You accepting?"

Rose looks around the ship thoughtfully. There are worse ways to while away a few years. The crew seem a good bunch at heart, as far as she can tell. Except maybe Jayne. Rose might seriously smack him one to knock some sense into him if she didn't think that would just turn him on.

"Ask me again once I've seen the whole ship," Rose replies noncommittally. "Which I'll make it a point to see after I've got cleaned up, I think. I hear blood's not a good look this time of year."

She goes off to her room to find a towel and a container of water, and thinks back fondly on days of long, hot showers. When she emerges from her room, as tidy as one gets around here, Mal is waiting for her.

"Thought I'd show you about, since you want to see everything," he says. "No one knows _Serenity _like I do."

"When I said I need to be allowed to see the ship, I also meant you've gotta be willin' to let me actually move about without you watching my every step. Unless that's got nothin' to do with not trustin' me, of course."

Mal doesn't answer her jibe, which makes her suspect her teasing has at least some grounding in reality. She's not all that surprised, really. She's been wondering about it since realising on the very first day just how intently he watches her. He's clearly intrigued by her, even if he'd prefer not to admit it.

He gives her the 'grand' tour, or what passes for it on a rust bucket ship that's held together more by sheer will than solid engineering.

"And this here's the rest of the crew's bunk-downs, just 'round the corner from you're set up. Free run of the ship or not, you don't go inside any of them 'less you're invited, dong ma?"

Rose raises her eyebrows at him. "What about yours?" she asks. "This ship seems like it'd see one emergency after another, so I figure the Captain of the ship has to be easily accessible. Do I even get to know which room you're in?"

"That'd be the one you're leaning up against," Mal says. His tone isn't as testy as it might be, given her forwardness. It gives her further hope that things between them don't have to always be hard and confrontational (though she thinks sometimes that's good too).

"And am I invited in here?" Rose says. She places her foot on one of the metal rungs on what he's indicated is his door and waits.

"Only if you know what it is you're really asking for," Mal replies. He raises an eyebrow in challenge.

Oh yes, Rose thinks, he's definitely interested.

"Why don't you explain it to me," Rose says, pushing the door backwards with her foot and looking down at the small view of the room below that she's revealed. "In detail." Her other foot finds the rung below the first. She pauses, giving him a chance to stop her.

"You're asking for trouble, is what."

"Trouble's just the bits in between," she says sadly, the memory of a better time slipping through her fingers as it always does in moments like this, when comparison is unfortunately inevitable.

"Yeah," he agrees. "And I don't suppose risk means a lot when you can't die."

Rose uses her foot on the rung to boost herself up a little closer to his height and finds his lips. The kiss is softer than she expects of him, more tender.

"You're wrong," she breathes when he falls away from her. "That's when it means _everythin'_."

She opens her eyes slowly and finds his still just inches away. There's a sort of hesitancy in his look that Rose can't help but identify with.

"You're hung up on someone," Rose realises. She's surprised it's taken her this long to figure that out. Even though Mal has been pretty careful to keep her at arm's length until now, she's still lived with the same problem for centuries, after all; long enough that they should be instantly identifiable even in a veritable stranger.

"Ain't never stopped me before," Mal says, not even trying to deny it.

Rose laughs humourlessly. "Yeah, me either. Guess people in glass spaceships shouldn't throw grenades."

She takes a step down onto the next rung, and the next, and he doesn't tell her to stop her descent into his personal sanctuary. She's found most of life is about the things left unsaid, and what he wants is tangible in its silence. He's certainly quick enough to follow her down the ladder.

They both know what it is to love someone else, but that's the point. Neither of them expects anything more than a little transitory comfort from this, and perhaps a close sort of friendship that might linger beyond the obviously physical part. Sometimes a warm body to stave off the cold of space can be as welcome as a single kiss from the one you really love.

More so, in fact, when the kiss you remember most is the one that says goodbye.

~FIN~


End file.
